While many off-duty officers and PBA members held signs that bore slogans of, "It's a Courtesy Not a Crime," ticket-fixing charges weren't the only ones aired in court: grand larceny, drug charges and unrelated corruption were also found in the probe. Four of the policemen charged helped a man escape assault charges. Flatscreen TV-loving Jose Ramos, who is at the center of the probe and was the only cop charged who remained in jail on $500,000 bond, was caught on a wiretap saying, "I stopped caring about the law a long time ago."

When some Bronx residents, who were waiting in line for government assistance next door, shouted "Fix our tickets!" the officers and supporters responded with a ugly chant of "E.B.T." "To be ridiculing people in the welfare line across the street doesn't endear you to the public eye," an unnamed official said.